


and when we go crashing down, we come back every time

by sinagtala (strikinglight)



Category: Free!
Genre: Alcohol, Bad Decisions, M/M, Minor Injuries, POV Second Person, disaster natsuya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 04:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15788853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/pseuds/sinagtala
Summary: Soon the sight of still water makes you restless; soon you can’t even gaze into the surface of an empty pool without wanting to dip your hand in it and disturb everything. To throw yourself into it and disturb everything.





	and when we go crashing down, we come back every time

**Author's Note:**

> I have nothing to say for myself except that sometime yesterday [Ewa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewagan) said, "Natsunao x Style, Meg" and I said, for lack of anything better, "skjdghdg".
> 
> This is a collab, because when you make bad decisions it's better to make them not-alone, haha. Please check out her lovely art for it [here](https://twitter.com/ewagan/status/1033175487370022912), and die with us.
> 
> [Title/mood music, naturally.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CmadmM5cOk)
> 
> JUST TAKE ME HOME

You still dream, sometimes, of the sea by your hometown. In those dreams you’re walking in the water, wading waist-deep against the gentle push of the tide. He is walking the shoreline behind you with your shirt hanging off one shoulder, and there are shards of sea glass in his hands and in his pockets, frosted lumps of amber brown and cloudy white and green, all the edges taken off. Nothing that can hurt him to touch anymore. When you wake up your skin is still warm as it only ever is when you’re home.

The truth is it’s years since you’ve been home. Since then, there have been other oceans, some you tell him about, and some you don’t. You’ve never told him about the cliff just outside of the town you moved to, how night after night in the summer you and your friends would bike up there to drink and shout and kiss each other until the sun came up. You’ve never told him you leapt that cliff once, the day you turned eighteen—because one of the girls dared you to, because you liked the way she smiled when she said it, because that smile reminded you of something far away. You still remember how the stone cut into the soles of your feet as you ran, and how quick it all was before there was nothing at all overhead and underfoot and all around you, nothing but the sun in your eyes and the sea foaming below, and a horizon line so distorted you couldn’t tell where the sky began. You still remember how every bone in your body thrummed when you hit the water. You came back up with a mouth full of salt to the sound of a dozen voices shouting your name, and for days after that you could feel the ground rocking under your feet like a moored boat.

You’ve never told him, _I might have died that day._ You’ve never told him, _I never stopped thinking of you._

Something you want to tell him, but haven’t: the thing about the sea is that even on the calmest days it’s never still. That’s enough to keep you always chasing it, no matter where in the world you go. Soon the sight of still water makes you restless; soon you can’t even gaze into the surface of an empty pool without wanting to dip your hand in it and disturb everything. To throw yourself into it and disturb everything. You remember smashing the mirror of one place you stayed at, some little motel in some coastal town, and you know that must have been the same sort of hunger—just because you could, just because you had a bottle of whiskey in your belly and a fire in your head and you thought you saw his face look back at you from the glass. You wanted to see what he looked like all broken up. That’s all. No other reasons.

When you woke up the next morning it was just you again, staring back at yourself like always. You paid for the damages with a smile and the last of your prize money from that month’s races and sent yourself on your way.

Your knuckles bled a little when you finished with the mirror, the way they do in the movies; hot and bright down to your wrist, too pretty for words. Sometimes you still think about that red and imagine that if he were with you in that room he might raise your hand to his mouth and kiss it, and his lips coming away red from your skin would be the only thing in the world that could be prettier. And then you’d put that hand on his chest above his heart and push him gentle as the tide down onto the floor. You like to make yourself laugh this way, imagining things. Wondering what you need to do to mess up those smooth surfaces of his, just once, like you’ve always wanted. Possibly this is the only thing you’ve ever wanted.

Now and again you’ll rent a car and imagine you see the line of those lips in the rearview. This is only ever on your longest drives, the kind where you don’t know where you’re going, only that you’ll stop when you can see water. There’s a metaphor in here somewhere for how all seas are one. It’s just as well that you can never tell if you’re running toward him or away, or simply taking the scenic route until the curve of the world itself turns your path over and brings you back to him. And then, well. Then you don’t know what you will do, only that this time when you jump it will be headfirst.

**Author's Note:**

> ~~i swear one day i will write soft sweet natsunaos that are not in second person but today is unfortunately not that day i'm so sorry~~


End file.
